Improving visitor management approaches for the changing preferences and behaviours of country park visitors in Hong Kong

This study identified the changing preferences of country park visitors in Hong Kong and the potential for such changes to have further negative impacts on the ecologically sensitive areas of country parks. A questionnaire was used to collect feedback from 644 country park visitors to understand their preferences and visitation patterns. To investigate visitors’ preferences and behaviours and to develop better visitor management strategies, the survey data were compared with studies conducted 20 years ago. The results showed that the most popular nature‐based activities of 20 years ago, namely, picnicking and barbecuing, have significantly declined in popularity, while other activities, namely, nature studies and nature photography, have surged in popularity in recent years. These changes in visitor preferences have directly increased the negative impacts of visitors on country parks as they dispersed away from the high intensity recreation zones to the ecological sensitive areas. This emerging group of country park visitors has not been fully considered in the existing approach to visitor management and may irreversibly impact the ecological value of country parks. In this study, visitor management in Hong Kong's country parks was reviewed based on these research findings, and potential improvements were suggested.     

Value to wildlife of urban-agricultural parks: a case study from Rome urban area

Urban-agricultural parks could have some advantages to wildlife because of less intensive agricultural procedures, absence of hunting pressure, and reduced human disturbance. In this study, the breeding and wintering bird communities and the small mammal community in an urban-agricultural park of Rome were compared to those of a close urban park and a close agricultural area just outside the city. The aim was to assess the best destination and management of wildlife in natural areas at the urban–rural interface. Richness and diversity of bird communities were higher in the urban-agricultural park. Due to habitat features and probably human disturbances, but not to urbanization, predation, and competition factors, the urban park drastically reduces the abundance of decreasing open-land bird species. Abundance of these species was not significantly different in the urban-agricultural park and in the agricultural area. In the urban-agricultural and urban park, bird and mammal pest species were more abundant than they were in the agricultural area. Regarding decreasing abundance of small mammal species, no significant difference among the study areas was observed. Urban-agricultural park is a better choice than urban park for wildlife. Thus, a higher number of preserved urban natural areas should be devoted to urban-agricultural parks. However, to increase the abundance of open-land species and in general wildlife, a less intensive management of cultivated and pasture patches is necessary.     

Past On-Site Experience,Crowding Perceptions,and Use Displacement of Visitor Groups to a Peri-Urban National Park

Past on-site experience was linked to the crowding perceptions and use displacement of 383 on-site visitors to the peri-urban Danube Floodplains National Park, Austria. Three visitor groups were determined according to their area experience: local residents from Vienna and rural communities, having the highest level of experience; regional visitors from the city and eastern Austria; and tourists from Austria and abroad with the lowest degree of experience. Crowding perceptions were significantly different across the user groups. More than 50% of local residents perceived the national park as crowded, whereas only 27% of regional visitors and 19% of tourists reported such an evaluation. Even among local residents and regional visitors, respondents with more on-site experience expressed a greater impression of a crowded park. Differences in crowding evaluations between local rural and urban residents and between regional rural and urban visitors were not found. For 27% of local residents and 15% of regional visitors, use levels were so unacceptable that they displaced temporally and spatially, whereas use displacement was relatively irrelevant for tourists. The use displacement strategies involved differ among the three user groups. Management implications were discussed, taking the specific situation of the small national park on the urban-rural fringe into consideration.     

Visitor Assessment of the Mandatory Alternative Transportation System at Zion National Park

Transportation infrastructure in national parks has historically been designed for the automobile. With more vehicles in the parks, visitors found themselves in circumstances more reminiscent of a city than a park. Traffic jams, overcrowding, illegal parking, horn honking, and idling vehicles became common, creating stress and contributing to air and noise pollution, the very things visitors were hoping to get away from. Park managers began searching for alternatives, including shuttle systems. Many national parks have implemented optional shuttle systems, but relatively few have completely closed roads to vehicles, transporting visitors on mandatory shuttles. Zion National Park instituted a mandatory shuttle system in May 2000 to relieve crowding and congestion in the main canyon and to protect natural resources. Taking a longitudinal approach, attributes of the shuttle (e.g., crowding, accessibility, freedom, efficiency, preference, and success) were assessed with experiential park factors (e.g., scenic beauty, naturalness, solitude, tranquility, air quality, and soundscape) in 2000, 2003, and 2010 by surveying shuttle-riding park visitors. While visitors initially reported a few reservations about the shuttle system, by 2003, the majority rated the system successful. Ratings of all shuttle-related variables, except crowding, improved over the decade. Improvements were greatest for freedom, accessibility, and efficiency. Multiple regression found overall shuttle success to be mediated by preference, freedom, accessibility, efficiency, and comfort. Experiential variables assessing park conditions followed a similar pattern, with improved ratings as the decade progressed. Results provide important insights into the visitor experience with mandatory alternative shuttle systems in national parks.     

The Relationship Between Environmental Concern and Acceptability of Environmental Impacts among Visitors to Two U.S. National Park Settings

This study examined the relationship between environmental concern and ratings of acceptability of environmental impacts among visitors at two national park settings. Based on the concept of a social ecological paradigm shift, it was hypothesized that individuals with greater levels of environmental concern are less accepting of environmental impacts in national parks than individuals with lesser degrees of concern. Sample data came from Cape Lookout National Seashore (N=392) and Moores Creek National Battlefield (N=236), two national park units in the south-eastern U.S.A. Environmental concern was measured by the New Ecological Paradigm scale. Acceptability was measured by visitor responses to 25 items covering different types of environmental park impacts. Analysis of variance and Tukey's means comparison procedure were used to test for differences between groups defined by levels of environmental concern on impact acceptability. Significant relationships were found between environmental concern and 15 of the 25 specific impacts in the Cape Lookout sample and 13 significant relationships were found in the Moores Creek sample. However, the relationships between environmental concern and acceptability varied somewhat across the two samples. These findings suggested that individuals with greater environmental concern were less accepting (or tolerant) of certain types of park impacts, while individuals with lesser degrees of environmental concern were more accepting of certain park impacts. Differences across the study settings were attributed to the different orientations of park visitors between the two national park units and recency effects. While the data reported are preliminary, they should be informative for park management purposes, particularly in the determination of standards for park impacts.     

The Appropriateness of Snowmobiling in National Parks: An Investigation of the Meanings of Snowmobiling Experiences in Yellowstone National Park

The debate over snowmobiling and other types of motorized recreation in US national parks signals the need for a better understanding of the meanings of these experiences. The fundamental issue facing many parks is whether snowmobiling is an appropriate activity. The matter of appropriateness is anchored in two questions: (1) Does snowmobiling in national parks cause unacceptable biophysical and social impacts? (2) Are snowmobiling experiences consistent with the fundamental purposes of national parks? This article particularly addresses the appropriateness issue and presents the findings of an interpretive study of the meanings of snowmobiling experiences in Yellowstone National Park (YNP). Sixty-five semistructured interviews were conducted with winter visitors who used snowmobiles in the park during the winter season of 1999. Overall, the study findings reveal that visitors on snowmobiles view YNP as a place to experience its wildland attributes, such as natural scenery, geothermal features, and, especially, wildlife. Snowmobiling is perceived as a mode of transportation rather than the experience in and of itself. The results challenge the popular image of snowmobiles as thrill-craft and snowmobilers as thrill-seekers. The study demonstrates that snowmobiling in YNP affords highly meaningful recreational experiences, grounded in appreciating the park’s unique natural features and attributes.     

Restoring naturalness to national parks

National park resource management planning requires ecological information describing the objectives to be achieved. This information must be quantitative and unambiguous. Since most acts creating United States national parks, beginning with the Yellowstone National Park Act of 1872, specify that these parks should be maintained in a natural condition, resource management objectives for each national park must be defined in terms of quantitative standards of naturalness. Such quantitative standards of naturalness do not yet exist for any national park in the United States. Although this article focuses on US national parks, the same problem exists in national parks, reserves, and wilderness areas throughout the world. The physical evidence needed to develop quantitative standards of naturalness is rapidly disappearing because of the effects of management fires, wildfires, decomposition, successional changes, and other disturbances. Therefore, a nationwide rescue ecology program is recommended to recover as much remaining ecological information as possible before it is lost. This information is essential for developing quantitative standards to restore naturalness to national parks.     

A Combined Park Management Framework Based on Regulatory and Behavioral Strategies: Use of Visitors' Knowledge to Assess Effectiveness

In light of the increasing mandate for greater efficiency in conservation of natural reserves such as national parks, the present study suggests educational approaches as a tool to achieve conservation purposes. Currently, the management of human–wildlife interactions is dominated by regulatory strategies, but considerable potential exists for environmental education to enhance knowledge in the short run and to prompt attitude change in the long run. A framework for conservation based on both traditional regulatory- and behavior-oriented strategies was proposed whereby the level of knowledge that park visitors have acquired comprises an obvious outcome and establishes a basis upon which the effectiveness of regulatory- and behavior-based regimes could be assessed. The perceptions regarding park-related issues of two distinct visitor groups (locals and nonlocals) are summarized from a survey undertaken in Vikos-Aoos national park. The findings suggest a superficial knowledge for certain concepts but little profound understanding of the content of such concepts, indicating that knowledge-raising efforts should go a long way towards establishing a positive attitude for the resource. Visitors' poor knowledge of the park's operation regulation contest the efficiency of the presently dominant regulatory management regime. While geographical distances did not appear to significantly differentiate knowledge between the two groups, wilderness experience (as certified by visits to other parks) was proved to be an impetus for generating substantial learner interest in critical park issues among nonlocal visitors. School education and media were found to be significant knowledge providers.     

我国工业园区生态化轨迹及政策变迁

本文梳理了我国工业园区生态化过程中,包括生态工业示范园区、循环经济园、低碳园区、绿色园区建设的政策变迁,总结出工业园区生态化的轨迹和特点,并分析了工业园区生态化过程中的不足和未来面临的挑战。我国工业园区生态化特点包括：试点-示范-推广的一般模式、学习型的政策、逐步多样的政策工具、参与政府部门的逐步多样化与最终整合的趋势、产业共生与多种环境管理措施并行的状态。未来的工业园区生态化工作需要注重理清产业共生的内涵,确定相应的政策目标、政策工具和评价体系,同时需要注重园区的能力建设。     

Solving the United States National Park overflight controversy

By mid-1990 the National Park Service (NPS) must present to Congress recommendations for managing overflights of at least ten national parks. The authors examine the potential role of formal negotiation in setting overflight policy in these parks by reviewing the overflight controversy at Grand Canyon National Park (GCNP). Regulations controlling overflights of the GCNP are only now being implemented after a 17-year conflict that culminated in a congressionally mandated solution. The authors review this controversy and find that, contrary to common perception, the number of park visitors bothered by overflights is not small but roughly equals the number of airborne visitors (up to 450,000 per year). On the basis of this investigation, the authors determine that formal negotiation would have been an appropriate policy-making process because of the clearly defined and limited number of parties and issues involved. Considering the number of park visitors that will continue to be affected by this issue, the authors conclude that formal negotiations should be considered for overflight problems involving other parks. Such negotiations should be park-specific. Differences in park size, extent of the problem, and parties involved would prohibit park-wide negotiations.This article has been adapted from Tourist Flights over the Grand Canyon: The Potential for Negotiated Solutions to Similar Problems, Analysis and Management, October 30, 1987. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors; they are not meant to represent the views of the organizations with which the authors are associated.     

Improving Operational Planning and Management of National Parks in Turkey: A Case Study

The purpose this study was to improve operational planning and management of national parks in Turkey to balance conservation use and sustainable management. Souksu National Park (SNP) was chosen as the study area. The data were obtained from interviews of 182 visitor groups (in total, 819 people) and analyzed using correlation, factor, discriminant, and regression analyses. It was found that the most important factors affecting operational planning and management of SNP are (1) travel cost, (2) visitor welfare level, (3) intensity of use, (4) size of visitor group, (5) type of recreational demand. The main source of visitors to SNP is from a zone within a 0–90-km radius. This region comprised 53.85% of total visitors to the park. The capital of Turkey (Ankara) is the most important source of visitors from within this zone. The optimum activity mix in SNP is also determined. Picnicking, viewing the scenery, and nature walks or trekking comprised the main uses of the park. It is anticipated that these findings will help to improve operational planning and sustainable management of the national park and the environment.     

Is this trail too crowded? A choice experiment to evaluate tradeoffs and preferences of park visitors in Garibaldi Park,British Columbia

Large crowds in parks can be a problem for park managers and visitors. However, perceptions of crowding are difficult to measure due to coping mechanisms deployed by park visitors. Furthermore, perceptions of crowding should not be measured in isolation, but rather as part of a suite of conditions that comprise the visitors’ outdoor experience. We used a dichotomous choice experiment with visual images and eight attributes to estimate park users’ utilities associated with their visitor experience in Garibaldi Provincial Park in British Columbia, Canada. Our visual method allowed us to control for background view and compare user preferences on hiking trails with preferences at final destinations. We find that utilities are more sensitive to crowding at viewpoints than to other aspects of the outdoor experience. Thus, visitor satisfaction and crowding perceptions are more likely to be defined by where visitors have these encounters rather than the total number of encounters.     

Who Visits a National Park and What do They Get Out of It?: A Joint Visitor Cluster Analysis and Travel Cost Model for Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone National Park visitor data were obtained from a survey collected for the National Park Service by the Park Studies Unit at the University of Idaho. Travel cost models have been conducted for national parks in the United States; however, this study builds on these studies and investigates how benefits vary by types of visitors who participate in different activities while at the park. Visitor clusters were developed based on activities in which a visitor participated while at the park. The clusters were analyzed and then incorporated into a travel cost model to determine the economic value (consumer surplus) that the different visitor groups received from visiting the park. The model was estimated using a zero-truncated negative binomial regression corrected for endogenous stratification. The travel cost price variable was estimated using both 1/3 and 1/4 the wage rate to test for sensitivity to opportunity cost specification. The average benefit across all visitor cluster groups was estimated at between $235 and $276 per person per trip. However, per trip benefits varied substantially across clusters; from $90 to $103 for the “value picnickers,” to $185–$263 for the “backcountry enthusiasts,” $189–$278 for the “do it all adventurists,” $204–$303 for the “windshield tourists,” and $323–$714 for the “creature comfort” cluster group.     

Public parks as an element of urban planning: a missing piece in Accra's growth and development

Public parks are important to urban environments, residents, and visitors. Among other functions, they provide environmental services, such as air and water purification, and they increase both recreational opportunities and the attractiveness of the urban environment. Because of their importance, urban parks serve as public spaces that provide visitors and urban residents with rights to the city. This paper identifies the dearth of urban public parks in Accra-Tema city-region as worrying. The Accra Plan 1958 underscored the significance of green spaces and designated the coastal strip for parks development but the areas have been lost to various urban uses. We argue that the continual neglect of public parks within urban planning and community development schemes in the Accra-Tema city-region is a major concern because it is depriving the citizens a right to the city and its public spaces. A number of factors have worked adversely against the provision of public parks and green spaces in the city-region. These include development pressures, undue political interference, a complex land delivery system, and ad hoc planning. The paper concludes by offering policy suggestions as to how to resolve the dearth of parks and green spaces in the city-region.     

National parks legislative mandate in the United States of America

Natural areas of national parks constitute unique ecological and aesthetic resources. Since the inception of national parks, it has been apparent that they are susceptible to threats that result in significant change and damage. Today, major issues concerning management of parks relate to questions of expanded visitor use and what types of facilities are to be deemed appropriate, that is, the dilemma of preservation versus use. In the United States of America, resolution of this dilemma must, strictly speaking, be based upon intent and meaning of Congressional legislation. The traditional interpretation of legislation in the U.S. has been to provide for a balance of use and preservation. However, extensive review of the literature of national park policy reveals a remarkable lack of elaboration and clarification of legislative meaning. Based upon a critical analysis of pertinent legislation, which has heretofore been ignored, we provide an interpretation of legislative meaning which strongly supports a policy of preservation of park resources.     

Visitor perceptions of rural landscapes: a case study in the Peak District National Park, England

Maintaining national parks is an integral policy tool to conserve rare habitats. However, because national parks are funded by taxpayers, they must also serve the needs of the general public. Increasingly, and thanks to today's diverse society, there is evidence that this creates challenges for park managers who are pulled in two opposing directions: to conserve nature on the one hand and to meet different visitor expectations on the other. This tension was explored in the Peak District National Park, a rural landscape dominated by heather moorland and sheep farming in Northern England where research was conducted to determine how social class and ethnicity shaped perceptions of the park. Results uncovered that social class played a very strong role in shaping perceptions of this region with 'middle class' respondents reacting far more favourably to the park than people from more working class backgrounds. We observed ethnicity playing a similar role, though our results are less significantly different.     

Understanding and Managing Experiential Aspects of Soundscapes at Muir Woods National Monument

Research has found that human-caused noise can detract from the quality of the visitor experience in national parks and related areas. Moreover, impacts to the visitor experience can be managed by formulating indicators and standards of quality as suggested in park and outdoor recreation management frameworks, such as Visitor Experience and Resource Protection (VERP), as developed by the U.S. National Park Service. The research reported in this article supports the formulation of indicators and standards of quality for human-caused noise at Muir Woods National Monument, California. Phase I identified potential indicators of quality for the soundscape of Muir Woods. A visitor “listening exercise” was conducted, where respondents identified natural and human-caused sounds heard in the park and rated the degree to which each sound was “pleasing” or “annoying.” Certain visitor-caused sounds such as groups talking were heard by most respondents and were rated as annoying, suggesting that these sounds may be a good indicator of quality. Loud groups were heard by few people but were rated as highly annoying, whereas wind and water were heard by most visitors and were rated as highly pleasing. Phase II measured standards of quality for visitor-caused noise. Visitors were presented with a series of 30-second audio clips representing increasing amounts of visitor-caused sound in the park. Respondents were asked to rate the acceptability of each audio clip on a survey. Findings suggest a threshold at which visitor-caused sound is judged to be unacceptable, and is therefore considered as noise. A parallel program of sound monitoring in the park found that current levels of visitor-caused sound sometimes violate this threshold. Study findings provide an empirical basis to help formulate noise-related indicators and standards of quality in parks and related areas.     

Natural Resource Assessment: An Approach to Science Based Planning in National Parks

We conducted a natural resource assessment at two national parks, New River Gorge National River and Shenandoah National Park, to help meet the goals of the Natural Resource Challenge—a program to help strengthen natural resource management at national parks. We met this challenge by synthesizing and interpreting natural resource information for planning purposes and we identified information gaps and natural significance of resources. We identified a variety of natural resources at both parks as being globally and/or nationally significant, including large expanses of unfragmented, mixed-mesophytic forests that qualify for wilderness protection, rare plant communities, diverse assemblages of neotropical migratory birds and salamanders, and outstanding aquatic recreational resources. In addition, these parks function, in part, as ecological reserves for plants in and wildlife. With these significant natural resources in mind, we also developed a suite of natural resource management recommendations in light of increasing threats from within and outside park boundaries. We hope that our approach can provide a blueprint for natural resource conservation at publically owned lands.     

Evaluating the Environmental Performance of Urban Parks in Mediterranean Cities: An Example from the Barcelona Metropolitan Region

In a context of increasing urban sprawl and water scarcity common to other Mediterranean cities, this article focuses on the urban parks in the Region of Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain) to examine how these parks are distributed in this region and to assess whether their design and management follow criteria adapted to Mediterranean environmental conditions, especially in what concerns water use. In order to evaluate the environmental performance of these parks, we selected four factors possibly influencing the adoption of park management practices at the local scale: urban density, population size of the municipality, municipal income per capita, and political orientation of the city council. After determining the location and area of urban parks in the region, we correlated these four explanatory factors with several management tasks extracted from two different samples of parks (one of 315 parks and another of 125 parks) and a survey of 86 city councils. Results show that, in general, urban parks were more frequent in large, dense, and left/green municipalities but that environmentally sound practices were more common in small and low-density municipalities. We conclude that changes in certain practices (especially the substitution of high water demanding species) could improve significantly the environmental performance of public spaces in large urban areas with Mediterranean climates. Our observations may be pertinent for other cities interested in the provision of environmental public goods such as parks that necessitate water for irrigation.